Friday Faves – The Food Librarian makes Coffee Cake Bundt
Hope everyone had a great week. Mine was busy but pretty good. For this week’s Friday Favs, I’m featuring Mary from The Food Librarian. This is a blog I’ve been following for a long time and I don’t remember how I even found it in the first place. Mary posts all sorts of yummy looking baked goods. Her photos sometimes include clever little comments and are always enticing. One of the most memorable things that Mary does is her I Like Big Bundts posts. In 2009 and 2010, she posted a new bundt recipe every day in November. That’s a lot of bundts! So it’s no surprise that when I opened my email from her, there was a recipe for a bundt in there.
Hi! It’s Mary the Food Librarian guest posting on Jen’s blog today! I’m a public librarian in Los Angeles who is obsessed with the Bundt cake. For the past couple years, I’ve celebrated National Bundt Day by posting 30 days of Bundts – affectionately named, I Like Big Bundts. Since National Bundt Day is just around the corner (November 15th), I thought I would bring you a Bundt!
I found this Bundt on Martha Stewart’s website. It’s from Everyday Food’s Lucinda Scala Quinn’s Mad Hungry book. A sour cream batter is prepared and two layers of sugar, cocoa and instant coffee (I used instant espresso) are layered in the Bundt pan. Swirls with a knife marble the mix a bit before baking.
This isn’t the biggest Bundt, so I think you could make it in a 10-cup or a 12-cup Bundt pan. I used this Classic Nordic Ware Bundt (12-cup).
This Bundt is perfect with a mug of coffee or cup of tea. It’s nice served for breakfast or brunch…or standing over the sink for a midnight snack. Thanks for letting me visit! You can find The Food Librarian blog here and on Twitter @foodlibrarian. I hope you join me in making a Bundt to celebrate Bundt day this November!
Aunt Patty's Coffee Cake Bundt
Ingredients:
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp instant coffee (I used instant espresso instead)
1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Dutch-processed cocoa, but I'm sure natural cocoa would be fine too)
2 cups all-purpose flour (10 ounces)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp coarse salt
8 Tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar (7 ounces)
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup sour cream, at room temperature
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 10-cup or 12-cup Bundt pan.
In a small bowl, mix together the sugar, instant coffee, and cocoa. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
Using an electric mixer (I used a KitchenAid with paddle), cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add one egg at a time, beating until just combined.
On low speed, mix in 1/3 of the flour mixture, then 1/2 of the sour cream. Repeat until you end with the flour mixture.
Add vanilla and mix, scraping the sides of the bowl well with a spatula.
Pour 1/3 of the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle 1/2 of the filling on top. Pour in another 1/3 of the batter and sprinkle the remainder of the filling on top of that. End with the last 1/3 of the batter. Run a dinner knife down through the batter and swirl the knife gently to marble the batter in about six places.
Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Cool on a rack for 20-30 minutes, then turn out onto a plate.
Recipe From Lucinda Scala Quinn's Mad Hungry book, Appeared on the Martha Stewart website here
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
I am of two minds on this post. On the one hand, my OCD really kicked in when I read that you had not followed Mark Bittman’s recipe but still decided to write about it. Seemed a bit sloppy for a nerd and an engineer. On the other hand, that is how Pasteur discovered Penicillin. Bittman is such a great cook, that I think he deserves better treatment; so I plan to do him the honor of making his recipe. I am not going to make the other two though!
Oops! Senior moment that – it was the Scottish scientist and Nobel laureate Alexander Fleming in 1928. Apparently, the Pasteur Institut ignored the work of a French physician, Ernest Duchesne, who in 1897 discovered the curative properties of the Penicillium Glaucum, a different mold than the one Fleming discovered, but in the same genus. Gotta love Wikipedia.
There are two tapioca recipes on the Minute Tapioca box. I always use the one for Fluffy Pudding, which calls for 2 cups milk and whipping the egg whites separately from the cooked milk with tapioca and egg yolk. I think you will find the pudding much improved over the basic recipe.
Also, the quality of the vanilla makes a huge difference in something like tapioca. Cooks Illustrated likes McCormick and I found this on amazon and at Sam’s Club in large bottles for very reasonable prices.
One other note: I find that CI has a sweet tooth: their recipes are sometimes too sweet for my taste, though they are a go-to source otherwise.
This is an interesting discussion. I tried the Kraft recipe today. I threw everything (except the vanilla) in the blender before putting it on the stove. I also added 1/2 tsp. salt and a bit more vanilla. I actually thought it was sweet enough already, though. However, I agree with your overall conclusion that it’s a bit boring. Well, at least it was easy. Anyway, next time I may a recipe using large tapioca. 🙂
Thanks for the comparison.